Ashamed of the Truth

 Driving through the rain at fifteen minutes past midnight, he was listening to the piano recitals of Chopin’s nocturnes. That was when he saw her. It seemed she was stranded on the side of the highway. She was hiding from the rain. The headlights pierced through her eyes, and she was angrily staring back at them. She was unbelievably beautiful. It is true, it was her beauty that caused him to act on first instinct and stop right beside her.

The car had come to a halt, and her body gravitated towards it. She questioningly stepped forward just enough so that she could prevent her feet from getting wet in the rain. Her skin was white like snow and pure like ash. The thumbs of her feet were long and the nails on them had been perfectly painted red. The black straps of her sandals were tightly grasping her fair feet.

Lightening struck the moment their eyes met. Amidst the deafening sound of rain, their inner voices were faint yet unusually curious.  “Why has this man stopped here? What does he want from me?”, she was wondering. “What’s a woman like her doing out here all alone at such a late hour?”, he thought. “Stranded?”, he asked her. His breath smelled an awful lot like cigarettes, and it was burdened with the weight of true emotion. His voice had hardly reached her, so he leaned towards her and repeated himself. Upon hearing that word, ‘stranded’, she immediately drew herself away from the car. She even stole back her gaze from the stranger. He was desperate to look into her eyes just one more time. “Are you on the run? I can give you a ride”, he said. She immediately turned to leave, but her feet were rooted to the ground around which heavy rain was falling. She spent a few seconds gazing at the trees.

“It seems she is stuck in some situation”, he again thought. She noticed he hadn’t driven off yet. Her eyes had widened in anxiety and her jaw had begun to drop with fear. It was easy to tell that she was indeed stuck. The expression on her face suggested that he had caught her doing something very wrong. Raindrops gathered on the road reflected the colour red originating from the taillights. The cicadas were creating an incredible noise, he realized. For her, they had been singing all this while. “I do not intend to bother you. I only offer help, because it isn’t safe.”, he said. Her defeated gaze slowly turned back towards the car and she checked the seats inside for signs of anything suspicious. Her fingers reached for the handle on the door of the passenger seat without her consent. She mindlessly pulled the door open. Cold rain caused goosebumps on her forearm, so she hurriedly left the shelter of the roof under which she stood, and jumped into the car like a cat. She pulled the door shut harder than needed drowning the singing of the cicadas into Chopin’s nocturnes. Although she had heard the choir at her church play the piano quite well, she had never heard Chopin. The music immediately soothed her overwhelmed senses and she firmly rested herself on the seat.

“Where do you have to be?” he asked her. “Away” she replied.

Her breath was heavy. Her chest was wildly rising and falling. She had walked perhaps, or even run a long way. Her gaze was still set on the forest. When she felt a warmth caress her skin, she finally realized that she had accepted help from a stranger. The inside of the car was oddly comforting.

 “She is mesmerizingly beautiful!” he thought and turned his gaze to the road ahead and found a deer had been standing close to the headlight. It was looking right back at them. The animal hadn’t come to her notice either so he exclaimed, “Look!”. His surprise must have freaked the creature out and it leaped wildly back into the forest. He breathed in heavily and exhaled.

He pushed the clutch with his foot, put the car in gear, and accelerated, lifting his foot off the clutch. The car began to quietly move.

For the first several minutes she kept fidgeting. So, he asked her, “Are you running away from somewhere or someone? Are you in danger? Is someone following you?” His words were shredding her heart to pieces. She turned her head away from him to look out of her window. The dense forest she was running away from was passing them by. But she was scared it would still last forever. She couldn’t say anything. Her head was spinning. Briefly, he wondered if he was in trouble for giving her a lift. But he could sense that she was comfortable, so he kept quiet for a while and kept his eyes peeled.

All this while a word he had uttered kept spiraling inside her head. It was that word ‘help’ which did not stop echoing. Everything else was a colourless blur. Only the rain falling on the windshield and the windows made her feel like she wasn’t dead yet. She felt dead otherwise. Nothing else made any sound, not even Chopin. But something reassured her she was safe. She could sense it in the air. Suddenly, she was nervous and pressed her finger between her teeth. The pine trees were black and whizzing past one after another. “I’m headed home,” he told her. His words helped break the cycle of wicked thoughts inside her head, so she didn’t mind hearing his voice so much. But still, she couldn’t stop thinking. Tears began to swell up in her eyes. She was looking the other way, so he couldn’t see them.

Thunder and rain were continuing. Even the wiper arms were struggling to do their job. He had to switch the safety lights on, concentrate twice as hard on the road cutting through the mountains, and drive slower than usual. He would scrunch up his face every time a car went past them in the opposite direction. Drops of rain blurred bright lights from the few that did appear out of the black void into images of soft cold suns. Cars and trucks came and went like vessels in orbit around the hills. Only headlights illuminated this highway that cut across a dense forest and the rain was busy eating away the hills on which this forest dwelt.

He was orphaned at a young age and didn’t have any real sense of family. He had once been seriously in love with a woman, but she went on to marry someone else. The last time they met he was certain he would never hear from her again until a week ago when he received an invitation from her for dinner. It had felt like an invitation to a beheading at first because the house where she lived with her husband was twenty-seven hours away by road. But he promptly accepted without thinking.

He felt ashamed standing at her doorstep waiting for someone to answer the doorbell. It was a beautiful wooden cottage, painted white, surrounded by trees, and tucked away on a hill in the forest. He had to wait a while by the stairs leading up to the living area because the couple was busy preparing for dinner. The woman was chopping vegetables and arranging them into a salad bowl according to their colour. She had spent all evening cooking rice with meat and grinding fermented dry fish. While the food in the kitchen smelled delicious, the flowers she had bought that morning and mindfully arranged in a glass vase had spread their fragrance in the dining room.

Her husband was busily ironing the tablecloth in one of the three rooms on the floor above when the doorbell rang. When he heard the doorbell ring the second time, he set the iron aside, switched it off, and took to the tablecloth downstairs to lay it on the dining table before heading towards the door through the corridor in the living room. It was quite a big place her husband had acquired from his parents.

By the time the door opened the cold air had already sent shivers down his spine. “Good evening, I’m Saumya”. “It’s good to see you, Saumya”. The two men firmly shook hands. Her husband then led Saumya inside. The kitchen was right beside the living room to the left. The woman appeared out from there and gleefully hugged Saumya. Her arms left a heavy impression around Saumya’s neck, like an albatross.  They briefly caught up but it felt like an empty conversation. “Why don’t the two of you sit, and I’ll bring food from the kitchen.”

“So, you drove all this way?” sternly asked the man.

The adrenaline rush caused by the highway was still fresh in his blood, “It was quite something,” Saumya said anxiously tapping his heel on the floor without control. “Would you like some time?”, asked the man. Saumya shook his head. There was awkward silence in the room for some time. “I’ll go see if she needs help,” said the man and walked into the kitchen. He stared at the walls blankly while the three ate together in silence. He saw their lips move but he couldn’t hear any sound. Even the couple felt he was awfully quiet.

The couple had reached a weird point in their marriage where their discontents were obvious. Saumya had meant a lot to her and she wanted her husband to know that since she was once capable of love, she had it in her to keep on loving. Saumya could not have cared less about their marriage. Saumya was depressed and ashamed because he knew he still deeply loved her. He had never been able to move on with his life since their separation many years ago. He no longer knew what it meant to love. He shivered in a rhythm. The picture of that lonesome cigarette on the dashboard kept coming back to him, he was going to cherish it later. By the end of the night, they had eaten and drunk to their hearts' content. Their conversations were dull and utterly lifeless. There wasn’t a single instance of joy or laughter, not even if it was phony. The couple did try to make pleasant conversations but Saumya didn’t partake in any of them. When it was time to bid Saumya adieu, the woman did it with genuine kindness, even though she could not remember why she had ever loved him in the first place. She was finally ready to move on, she thought, because she was certain that this was the last time, they would speak with one another. She saw him off from the door at the top of the stairs and her husband came down to drop Saumya to his car.

When Saumya got back inside his car, he gave his last cigarette a long stern look, and then looked back at the cottage behind which a big silvery moon was hanging in the sky. The moon must have been three times the size of the cottage. It was staring back at Saumya like a ghost from the dark. A thin line of silvery moonshine ran across the pointy-tipped tall trees and over the car. The forest was swaying with the wind, and dark clouds had begun gathering in the sky. Saumya felt deeply abandoned. He was twenty-seven hours away from home, he hadn’t had any sleep, and it didn’t even matter to him.

He looked at the passenger’s seat and he was once again bemused by how extraordinarily beautiful she was. Her skin was fair but glistened like the colour of honey. Her neck had wrinkles around it and each crease intrigued him about her past experiences. He hadn’t found out yet that she was crying. He knew he shouldn’t look at her so closely and so he brought his attention back to the road. But his eyes began wandering again. This time he caught a glance of her maroon blouse. It seemed to have been stitched so tightly around her breasts that cloth and flesh seemed inseparable. Her breath was unsettled and had a broken rhythm. His gaze then went slithering towards her naked waist, then towards her thighs, and to her slender arms. The chador draped around her was a brownish mustard. The creases on it were as intriguing as the ones he’d seen on her neck. Taking note of how it aroused him to look at her in that light he decided that from now on he would only keep his eyes on the road. Still, he could not tell that she was crying. Maybe it was so because of the sound of the rain which came crashing down from above. That sound the rain made had healed him. He had been driving for over three hours now. The cigarette on the dashboard was still waiting its turn. As time passed only wilderness would come their way for the next seven hours.

On any other day, he wouldn’t have even stopped to help a stranger, man or woman. The pace of modern life is just too fast to stop and help someone in need. It wasn’t like him to care. He would have left a woman stranded at the mercy of the wilderness. His lover’s invitation had reminded him that life was full of uncertainties. He craved that cigarette now because that little thing would remind him that one day he would die. Death is a certainty and he feels disinterested in life. He found someone beautiful in a forest when everything around him was shrouded with darkness. He couldn’t drive past her.

He shut the music off. It was hardly audible anymore anyway. Insomnia had championed romantic feelings for the nocturnal. She combed the locks of hair that had till now hidden the tears rolling down her cheeks behind her ear. The sound of the rain had cured the nausea of uncontrollable thoughts. “I… uh… was driving back from dinner” he blurted out and looked at his wristwatch. It was nearing three a.m. She remained silent but her tired gaze fell on the cigarette lying on the dashboard. She fancied cigarettes. Her fingers yearned to reach for it but she crossed her arms and drew them into her waist with some awkward fear. He saw that and rolled down the automatic windows. “Have it”, he offered. The air smelled like earth, rain, and burnt diesel. A few drops of rain splashed inside the car, some even wet their skins, but their clothes were safe. The touch of raindrops on her skin was cool and exciting. She grabbed the cigarette and placed it between her plump lips. The moon was bright and she had its silver lining on her lips. He passed her the lighter. She lit the cigarette and released a heavy smoke from her lungs. “Who did you have dinner with?”, she asked. Her question immediately reminded her of her house and her children whom she had abandoned fifteen hours ago. “We were together for a few years; I saw her one day become my wife. She is married to someone else now.” He paused and said, “Her husband was also there, at the dinner, I mean.” Then she smoked the cigarette in peace. When she was done, she had an intense desire to smoke another one sparked in her heart. She sighed out the last cloud of smoke softly. 

The people of her town had called her a witch. They spread rumours that she was the reason her husband abandoned her and their children. He left them exactly one year ago. Escaping what her life had become was all she ever dreamed about. She did whatever work came her way to keep her children alive, but did she have to live this way? If the father of her children can abandon them, so can she, she felt. How old was she when she had them anyway? Her mother passed away when she was still just a child and her father was a drunk who would mercilessly beat her. She hated that she felt no love for her children. She hated that she was no longer capable of any love. Love was only an emotion and she just did not feel it anymore. She was on a great escape to discover a new life. She was running away from herself. She had become crazy. What sort of a mother can a crazy woman be, she often thought.

The memory of her house and her children caused her to tremble all over again. She turned around to see the highway stretching into the distance leading towards her past life. She heard her children call her. But she was only hearing their voices inside her head. The empty darkness towards which the car was heading was proof of her escape. She imagined that the neighbours would find them and raise them as their own. Her disappearance would cause them great grief. That might still be much better than all she could ever give them, she thought. She was scared these voices inside her head would one day convince her that her life had no point at all. She began to hum some song softly to keep these frightening thoughts out of her head. Her cynical lust for another cigarette reminded her of the first time she smoked. She was lying in the grass on her stomach next to a river. Her knees were bent and her toes tickled one another. She was carrying firewood in a basket whose strap ran across her forehead and she had stopped to rest for a while. She had a long uphill climb ahead of her and she had stooped to read a book. The aroma of the cigarette had settled itself on her sweaty clothes.

Saumya rolled the automatic window back up again. They approached a bridge underneath which a Brahmaputra roared. There were Victorian lamps along the bridge. When she saw the light of the lamps fall on the rolling river her eyes peeled off in amusement. Her mood changed a little. The banks must have been approximately six hundred meters apart. The rain was still coming down hard. She turned to him with wide eyes as if she needed affirmation for what she was seeing. The lamps passed them one after another. She was indeed the most beautiful woman he had ever met. Her skin was the colour of sand. He felt a fire ignite in his body. He turned his eyes back on the road with embarrassment. She was like a dream. The car stepped off the bridge. The sound of the river faded into the distance. The light of the lamps was no more. They were under the cover of darkness of the forest once more. His heart had begun sinking. He thought that it would stop altogether. “Would you mind if I stopped at the railway station to buy a pack of cigarettes?”, he asked. She didn’t say anything. “I have to drive for another twenty-four hours. I’ll see if I can find a hotel when the sun comes up”, he rambled on.

She cleared her throat after some considerable time had passed and said, “We can check if cigarettes are being sold anywhere.” He looked at his wristwatch and it was going to be four o’clock in the morning. He got off the highway and took the road going towards an insignificant railway station. All the shops were closed. There was however one open tea shop. He parked the car next to a shelter, pulled out an umbrella from the back seat, and went out to buy cigarettes. She sat still for a while. Then she thought that maybe it would be better to run away. She hurriedly stepped out of the car and walked into the shelter. It was a cabin made of bamboo. There were logs of wood piled up on one side of it. In the middle, there were a few sticks tied together into a bundle. She looked around. There was nothing besides the forest for as far as she could see. The railway station was deserted. It was very dimply lit. She saw him make conversation with the shopkeeper. He wasn’t looking in her direction. She began anticipating when to run. But she felt confused. What would she do? She felt like going back home. Tears began to fall from her eyes again. She felt stupid.

When he came back with some food for her and cigarettes, he was shocked to see that she was not there inside the car. His heart jumped into his mouth for a second. He felt like he had lost a pet dog.

“Hey!” she shouted at him from the bamboo cabin. “In here!”

He shut the door to the car angrily and walked over towards her slowly. They did not speak for a while. He unwrapped the pack of cigarettes and lit one for himself. She took the lighter from his hand and squatted down. She had stacked a few wooden sticks together. She set them on fire. “There is a creature eating into my soul”, she said staring into the fire. “I can feel it cause decay to my life. I have nowhere to go to. I have no one. I don’t know what I will do, or how I’ll survive.” It was at this particular moment that it occurred to him that he wanted to lay in a comfortable bed with her and hear from her the story of her life. He wanted to know everything there was to her life. It was true he felt great sympathy for her, but he was ashamed of the truth. He was burning inside to hear her speak to him in silence, to see her reveal herself to him, to make herself bare before him. He wanted to know who she was when she made love. He had been so utterly fond of women all his life that he could recount all the encounters he had had with every single one of the women he had been with. That was the only language he ever really understood. The language of love. He found it attractive that she was warming her bones beside the fire. Everything blurred in the rush of these emotions. The cigarette made him dizzy. The sound of the rain drowned his lust for her. He wondered as he flicked the butt of the cigarette to the ground how he could want such a thing. He felt connected to her, but the colours did not shine in his eyes. What difference would it make if the sun were to rise? But, just like magic caused it to happen, the rain stopped falling and the sun came up. Nothing had changed.

She wanted to remain a ghost and ghosts could only come to life once the body gave way. His desire for her was useless. He had become exhausted chasing happiness all his life. It hurt him that she was not sinking along with him.

“I’m terrified of the unknown”, she said. “I always have been.” “You helped me so far because you knew it would make you happy. Thank you.” She had the look of helplessness on her face. She did not have a reason to ever fall in love again in her life.

“How are we going to spend the rest of our lives?”, he asked her. “We live making home inside of each other’s minds”, she said and walked towards the passenger’s seat. She got in and pulled the seat belt around her body. She was waiting for him. He bitterly came and sat in the driver’s seat. She turned to look out of her window. The fire she had started was slowly dying. “Can you believe that this morning the sun could also rise?”